Victoria
@babylon
Victoria
The Trump administration, according to The Wall Street Journal, did conduct a review of NASA and Department of Defense deals. But finding ways to remove Musk was functionally impossible. “Everybody in DOD was like, ‘No, no, no, no, no, no, let’s not do that.’ Because they’re so dependent on SpaceX now, and frankly, becoming increasingly dependent... See more
Wired • Elon Musk Is Out to Rule Space. Can Anyone Stop Him?
“I see Mark as a political shape-shifter whose number one goal is the survival and thriving of the company,” a Meta executive tells me. “Trump is so transactional that you can fight him and get fucked, or you can try to work with him and get a percentage of what you want.”
To tech’s power elite, Trump’s tit-for-tat nature is not a bug but a feature.
To tech’s power elite, Trump’s tit-for-tat nature is not a bug but a feature.
I Thought I Knew Silicon Valley. I Was Wrong
But all of that is peanuts, potentially, compared to Trump’s pursuit of a “Golden Dome” over America, which would allegedly protect it from ballistic, hypersonic, and cruise missiles all at once. Trump picked the top general from the Space Force to lead it and promised that such a defense would include “space-based sensors and interceptors.” That... See more
Wired • Elon Musk Is Out to Rule Space. Can Anyone Stop Him?
As I said ten years ago on benn.company.substack.com, “even though analysis is built on data, words—not tables and charts—are what make it effective.”
A new invisible hand
data DOES NOT speak for itself
If companies put public chatbots on top of their corporate databases, it won’t be for radical transparency, or because they haven’t had the technology to “crunch digital data” without it. Instead, they’ll do it because that chatbot will be told that it should use the right optimistic adjectives, that it should keep to the company line about the... See more
Is the innovator's dilemma outdated?
Finally, Sam Altman of OpenAI says that having thoroughly reviewed the mental health risks of ChatGPT, it’s now going to let adults do what they want, and also start offering erotica for verified adults. From ‘AGI will save humanity’ to ‘erotica for verified adults’. That didn’t take long.
Monday Brunch: Psychic frauds
Tech leaders could afford to stay out west and avoid politics. But then software products started to break down entire sectors of business. “These products were physically manifesting themselves in taxis, short-term rentals, and food delivery,” Lehane says, “bumping up against existing political systems, beliefs, laws.” Sometimes people died from... See more
I Thought I Knew Silicon Valley. I Was Wrong
Tech leaders could afford to stay out west and avoid politics. But then software products started to break down entire sectors of business. “These products were physically manifesting themselves in taxis, short-term rentals, and food delivery,” Lehane says, “bumping up against existing political systems, beliefs, laws.” Sometimes people died from that incursion. Old, beloved businesses closed. Local politicians got mad. To game the system, Silicon Valley jumped to the swamp. As one technologist in the current administration tells me, “The Valley now realizes it can’t ignore politics, because politics won’t ignore you.”
By daring to challenge the tech industry, Biden threatened the moguls’ business plans. Even worse, he hurt their feelings . “It’s impossible to exaggerate how offended they were,” says Nick Clegg, who was Meta’s president of global affairs until early this year. In July 2024, Andreessen and his partner Ben Horowitz announced that they would be... See more
I Thought I Knew Silicon Valley. I Was Wrong
ChatGPT has also become a broadly accessible global tool, with especially rapid growth in low- and middle-income countries. By May 2025, ChatGPT adoption growth rates in the lowest income countries were over 4x those in the highest income countries.